Agricultural Depression at Home and Abroad. 677 
falsify my hope of an improvement in the price of wheat : (1) 
the exceptional fruitfulness of the succeeding harvests in the 
world as a whole ; (2) the enormous gold premium in the 
Argentine Republic, together with the steady fall in silver ; and 
(3) the extension of operations under the “ option ” or “ future ” 
system. 
The prices of other kinds of grain have fallen mainly from 
“ sympathy” with wheat, though partly from one or more of the 
causes named above acting directly. The recent advance in the 
price of maize is due to a general deficiency in the production 
this year. 
With respect to the other principal agricultural commodities, 
no general intensification of depression has taken place since 
1891. There have been fluctuations in prices, due to exceptional 
circumstances in certain countries, such as drought in England, 
and there is some danger of an excessive production of butter 
for a time, while producers of meat in certain countries are 
injured by increasing supplies of beef and mutton. The prob- 
ability of such developments of enterprise, however, was anti- 
cipated in 1891, not excepting the attempt of our Australian 
friends to send us meat in a chilled instead of a frozen condition. 
In relation to meat, it is to be borne in mind that the gold pre- 
mium in Argentina tells in favour of exporters, just as it does in 
the case of wheat ; and it may hereafter, if it lasts, develop an 
export trade in dairy products. But just now the circumstances 
of our own country are not specially under consideration. So 
far as the prices of meat and dairy produce throughout the world 
can be tested by those of this country, no sucli collapse as has 
taken place with respect to grain has to be recorded. Live 
stock and meat have lately sold better than in 1891, frozen meat 
excepted ; and the average prices jof imported butter and cheese 
were slightly higher in 1893 than in 1891. This year 
exporters of frozen meat and butter have felt the effect of their 
own over-production ; but this has not prevented an advance in 
live stock and fresh meat, while the recent cheapness of milk 
and butter has been more due to a favourable season for dairy 
cows in this country than to any other cause. Still, in spite of 
what may prove to be only a temporary recovery in the prices of 
certain commodities, agriculturists in all parts of the world are 
suffering more or less seriously from depression, and most of them 
more severely than ever. 
A good deal of evidence upon our subject has lately been 
presented. For England and Scotland we have some of the 
reports of the Assistant Commissioners to the Royal Commission 
on Agriculture, as well as the evidence of a good many witnesses 
